


Solemn-Knee Swear

by eternaleponine



Series: Where There Is A Flame [21]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (well sort of), Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Gen, Writing Veelu Cracks Me Up Every Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 13:48:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13882140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternaleponine/pseuds/eternaleponine
Summary: Echo and Luna accidentally acquired a little girl, and Veelu has a Very Important Job for her to do.or, I really just have way too much fun writing highly intelligent 4-year-olds





	Solemn-Knee Swear

"Echoooooo!"

Echo managed to crouch before Veelu collided with her legs, scooping her up and hugging her tight tight tight, because that's how Veelu liked it. Veelu's arms squeezed around her neck, not quite as tight because they'd had conversations about how important breathing was. "Hey, Li'l Monster," she teased. "How are you?"

"I'm super awesome," Veelu said. "How are _you_?"

"I am pretty super awesome myself," Echo said, rubbing the tip of her nose against Veelu's in an Eskimo kiss before shifting her to one hip. "There's someone I want you to meet."

"Who?"

"You're going to find out in just a second," Echo said. She went into the living room where Luna was standing near the doorway to Adria's room. The little girl seemed to be trying to hide herself, half behind the curtain that served as her door and half behind Luna. 

"It's okay," Luna reassured her, getting a hand behind her back but not pushing her into view, just gently rubbing it. 

Echo knelt down, setting Veelu on her feet but keeping a hand on her in case she got it into her head to try to tackle-hug her, which seemed to be her standard greeting for the people she liked best. But Veelu was still, looking Adria up and down. "Veelu," Echo said, "this is Adria. She's staying here with me and Luna. Adria, this is my friend Veelu. She's Clarke's little sister. You remember Clarke."

Adria nodded. "Madi's Mom," she said softly.

"Yup," Veelu said. "Lexa is her Mama. I'm Madi's aunt! Only because I'm more small than her, most of the time we say we're cousins or people get confused."

Adria nodded again, glancing at Luna. Luna smiled at her, giving her a gentle nudge forward to encourage her. "It's nice to meet you," Adria said, holding out her hand, too formal for a nine-year-old but she was nothing if not polite. Unfailingly, sometimes infuriatingly so. 

"It's nice to meet you too," Veelu said, taking her hand and shaking it like this wasn't strange at all. "I brought a puzzle with me, because Mommy said I should. Do you want to help build it? It has _one hundred_ pieces!"

"That's not too many," Adria said. "I did a puzzle with over two hundred pieces once." 

"Whoa," Veelu said, suitably impressed. "Then this one will be _easy_!" She ran to get her backpack, which she'd dropped at the door, and came back with a box in her hands. It hadn't even been opened, and Echo wondered if Luna had mentioned that Adria liked puzzles so Abby had bought one special for Veelu to bring.

Adria started to head into her room, then glanced at Luna like she needed confirmation that it was okay. 

"Go ahead," Luna said. "Have fun. Let us know if you need anything." 

Which was a struggle that they were finally having some success with, at least. It had taken two weeks and a lot of reassurance to convince Adria that they weren't going to get upset at her if she asked for anything, and that this was her home, at least for now, and she could do things like go to her room, or the bathroom, or get a drink of water, without asking first. It was a good thing that Luna had the patience of a saint and radiated calm, because it was all Echo could do sometimes not to scream. 

Not at Adria. She wasn't upset at Adria. She was upset at the circumstances that had led Adria to be the way that she was, and probably would continue to be until they finally managed to make her believe, once and for all, that she was safe, and she was loved, and that she could let herself out from behind the walls that kept her cloistered inside of herself.

Assuming they got that chance.

It was a big assumption, considering that they currently only had the thinnest of legal authority over the little girl. One piece of paper that gave them the ability to make medical decisions for her, and another that allowed them to do things like sign school permission slips. Beyond that, they could only hope that her mother wouldn't suddenly show back up and take them to task – or court – over something that they'd done, thinking it was in the best interests of the little girl, that her mother didn't agree with.

As if she had any right to dictate what was in the best interests of a child that she had dumped on her sister Katie – a full time grad student who also worked two jobs – over the holidays before disappearing. One of Katie's jobs was at the bar with Echo, which Echo was currently in charge of after her boss had decided to flee for warmer climes in the face of a predicted two-week polar vortex. On New Year's Day she'd gone into the supply room to find a little girl standing in the middle of a pool of alcohol and broken glass, her eyes wide as she looked helplessly at the mess she'd accidentally caused. She'd flinched when Echo reached for her to lift her out, and Echo's heart had broken. It hadn't taken long to get the story out of Katie, and she'd swallowed her anger at the fact that her coworker hadn't been upfront about it in the first place and called Luna to come get her and watch her while Katie finished out her shift, because as she'd pointed out when Echo tried to send her home, if she didn't work, Adria didn't eat.

Echo had known how things were going to go even before she'd pressed Call, had known that there was no way either of them was going to be willing to let the little girl go back to a mother who was so quick to walk away from her, and an aunt who loved her, but who didn't have the time or the means to handle being a parent. A few days later Katie had convinced her sister to come back to sign the papers that let them take care of Adria, and then disappeared again with only a perfunctory goodbye and a (probably) empty promise that she would come back for Adria in the summer.

_Over my dead body,_ Echo thought, then and even more so now.

Echo sat down, and Luna sat beside her, slipping her arms around her and resting her cheek against Echo's shoulder. Echo laid her arm over Luna's, lacing their fingers, and tried to absorb some of her inner peace. She could hear the girls talking, Veelu's voice bright and sharp, Adria's softer, but gentle and patient as she helped Veelu get the pieces into the right places, explaining how they could tell if something belonged on an edge or the middle, and how they could sort the pieces by color to make it easier to find the one they needed. 

They'd been working for a while when Echo heard Veelu's tone change, dropping into a conspiratorial whisper... that could clearly be heard through the curtain. "There's something I need to tell you," she said. "And a _very important_ job that I am going to ask you to do."

Echo glanced at Luna, who pressed her lips together like she was fighting a smile. Which was understandable given that a four-year-old's idea of _very important_ tended to be quite different from an adult's. 

"What?" Adria asked, her tone equally grave. 

"Echo," Veelu said, "is allergic to chocolate. That means if she eats even one teeny tiny bit of it she could get sick. So we have to protect her, and it is _very serious_. I can protect her when I'm here; I am very good at it because I have been doing it since I was three."

Echo could feel Luna shaking, hiding her face against the back of Echo's shoulder now to muffle her barely-contained laughter. 

"But I am not here all the time, so now that you are here, you can help me. If there is chocolate, then you have to tell her that there is chocolate so she doesn't eat it, and also if she has chocolate then you have to eat it instead of her so she is protected and doesn't get sick, okay?"

"Okay," Adria said. 

"Do you solemn-knee swear?"

"Yes," Adria said. 

"You have to say it," Veelu said.

"I solemn-knee swear," Adria repeated. 

"Okay good," Veelu said. "I am very relieved now that she will be safe all the time." There was a pause, and then, back in her regular voice, "Now we can finish the puzzle."

When she'd finally gotten herself back under control, Luna unwedged her head from between Echo and the back of the couch and looked at her, her forehead furrowing. "Are you crying?" she asked softly, touching the damp trail that traced down Echo's cheek. " _Mein Schatz... was ist los?_ " 

She hadn't actually realized she was crying. "My heart got too full," she said. "It leaked out my eyes."

Luna smiled and kissed her softly. "You are loved more than you know."

Echo leaned into her, closing her eyes. "I think I'm starting to catch on."


End file.
